Defiler

So here's this giant enemy crab.

The Chaos Space Marines don't have a lot of their own vehicles at their disposal; whilst the loyalists have all kinds of nifty-cool tools fresh out of the Adeptus Mechanicus' foundries, the Chaos Marines have to make do with equipment that is antiquated in contrast. In many cases, their technology is capable of bridging the gap; the Chaos Marines field a number of weapons no longer in use with the Astartes (man-portable autocannons, for example). In other cases, their technology is inferior; the Chaos legions lack anything resembling Landspeeders, Whirlwinds, or Razorbacks, for example.

But it's not all bad. Chaos Space Marines are nothing if not inventive. And thus they came up with a vehicle that is as horrifying to look at as to be attacked by - the Defiler.

Often jokingly called a giant enemy crab, the Defiler was supposedly first conceived by Failbaddon,which would make it one of his only successes, but its true origins are tacitly believed to lie with the Word Bearers. The Defiler was made to provide Chaos Marine forces with a legitimate alternative to Dreadnoughts for close support; historically, Chaos' dreadnoughts were made with older and less-perfected tech, ensuring that every single moment that the pilot was installed in his sarcophagus, he was set alight with horrifying agony. This generally results in Chaos Dreadnoughts having outbursts of pain-and-rage-induced Hulk Syndrome and fucking up every goddamned thing in sight.

Suffice to say, this was proving problematic, and the Chaos marines sought a new way to get close-support that was less-likely to say, fire off a Plasma Cannon at its squadmates in a fit of rage over them not turning down the fucking Pat Benetar when the Dread's pilot has a headache. The answer came in an unexpected way - a Daemonically-Possessed machine with no actual crew, bound with rune-inscribed wards and sworn to obey its master. Whilst many daemons are driven halfway-mad by their imprisonment within the engine, the Defiler's occupant gets its head in the game when combat starts, showing blind loyalty to its master - and relishing in its power to blow things up and make shit dead.

As a possessed machine, it is completely fearless; all destroying the Defiler will do is free the daemonic essence trapped in the machine, so whether it runs around killing things or gets destroyed by a Meltagun blast, the Defiler is kind of win-win for its occupant. Indeed, when a Defiler is destroyed, its pieces are often refurbished by the dark gods to create new bodies for the fiends that combine both daemon-flesh and mechanical components, known as Soul Grinders.

Overview

The Defiler is a powerful beast. By default it's got as much armor as a Dreadnought, has 2 Dreadnought Close-Combat weapons, a Battle Cannon, a Reaper Autocannon, and a Heavy Flamer - quite a bundle of weapons for both close-combat and ranged assaults. Even better, it's highly upgradable - the Reaper Autocannon can be replaced with a Twin-Linked Heavy Bolter (for shredding infantry) or Twin-Linked Lascannon (for vehicle-busting). It can also exchange its Heavy Flamer for a Havoc Launcher, enabling it to launch reasonably-effective frag missiles out to a long distance for additional fire-support. Making it better it starts with Daemonic Possession, which means it's immune to Crew Shaken/Crew Stunned results, and have 5+ invuln. Topping it all off, it has solid armor (AV 12 front and side armor), with only its rear armor being a vulnerable point (AV 10) and 4 hull points, giving it some pretty decent staying power.

Alternately, it can exchange the Reaper Autocannon and Heavy Flamer each for additional Dreadnought close-combat weapons, giving it +1 attack for each, and giving it a walloping 5 or 6 attacks on-the-charge. Paired with the fact that it has Fleet, this makes the Defiler capable of causing serious damage to anything unfortunate enough to get caught up in its crabby claws, especially commander units and vehicles.

Whether you use it as a shooty walker, a melee-only walker, or some blend between the two (it can easily pull double-duty), the Giant Enemy Crab Defiler is guaranteed to be a giant fire-magnet, and enemies will devote truly retarded amounts of weaponry in an effort to hit its weak-point for massive damage. Unless they have a Lascannon type weapon, then they just one shot the damned thing, since it's not hard to land a shot on the back from far enough away.

In its standard configuration, it is good at every task but it doesn't exactly excel at any of them. It will lose out if made to compete against a more specialized vehicle of its size. So it will be outdone at long and medium range by a hellfire dreadnought, out-artillery'd by a basilisk or whirlwind, and out-melee'd by a crushing claw carnifex. But it makes up for this by being able to perform just about every needed task with the exception of Anti-air duty, and if it has Twin-Linked Autocannons even this is debatable, though the lack of the anti-air rule hurts quite a bit. Mind, when dealing with actual Forge World-made aircraft, a Havoc Squad full of Autocannons is usually the best option for the points, since Chaos lacks any dedicated anti-air vehicles.

The Drawbacks

The Defiler is a mighty vehicle and in all seriousness one of the overall most-flexible options Chaos has; it's as ubiquitous for the traitor legions as the Leman Russ is for the Imperial Guard. However, the Defiler has a number of very notable drawbacks on the tabletop. First and foremost, it's a very big vehicle, and a very obvious one at that - the model is roughly the size of a Land Raider, and this means Ordnance and blast weapons are less-likely to miss the damned thing. It also means that its vulnerable side (its back) is much larger than those of other vehicles.

Secondly, the Defiler's being Demonically possessed means its WS and BS are only 3 - average at best compared to the good accuracy of most Marine units and vehicles. Whilst every non-battle cannon weapon the Defiler can mount is twin-linked (ergo reducing the problems it may have with accuracy), the close-combat weapons it has are not so fortunate, causing the Defiler to rely on volume and sheer force to damage enemies in close-combat (it will miss about half the time on average, but will fuck up whatever it hits when it does).

Thirdly, the Defiler, due to its very large size and middling accuracy, is surprisingly vulnerable to being Tarpitted. This is because even with its considerable melee punch and fleet, it is particularly large and vulnerable to being tied up by expendable dick units like Conscript Squads (especially if they're used by a certain general who can replace them for free), Termagaunts, Scarabs, or Kroot which force it to spend valuable time mulching them as opposed to doing its valued job of raping vehicles and commander units. Take care to make sure that the Defiler is kept out of melee range of tarpits unless it's actively trying to get stuck in. With those new Necron Scarab rules, you should probably definitely avoid leaving your Defiler anywhere near a horde of those little vehicle-eating buggers.

Also it will lose and lose badly to dedicated melee walkers or monstrous creatures like the Furioso or Trygon due to the aforementioned accuracy problems. So keep it away from those fuckers unless you want your pretty little vehicle to end up a smoking wreck (ideally, engage them from afar).

Gallery

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  A Slaaneshi Defiler from 3rd Edition, back when they were able to mount Doom Sirens and Blastmasters. It'd count as a Soul Grinder now.